“Yes, she did,” acknowledged Virginia, trying not 43to quarrel with her patient, “but, of course, she didn’t know about that tax sale.”
“Well, she knows it now,” he answered pointedly, and when Charley came back they were silent. Virginia bandaged up his wound and slipped away and then Wiley lay back and sighed. There had been a time when he and Virginia had been friends, but now the fat was in the fire. It was her fighting mother, of course, and their quarrel about the Paymaster; but behind it all there was the old question between their fathers, and he knew that his father was right. He had not rigged the stock market, he had not cheated Colonel Huff, and he had not tried to get back the mine. That was a scheme of his own, put on foot on his own initiative–and brought to nothing by the Widow. He had hoped to win over Virginia and effect a reconciliation, but that hole in his leg told him all too well that the Widow could never be fooled. And, since she could not be placated, nor bought off, nor bluffed, there was nothing to do but quit. The world was large and there were other Virginias, as well as other Paymasters–only it seemed such a futile waste. He sighed again and then Death Valley Charley burst out into a cackling laugh.
“I heard you,” he said, “I heard you coming–away up there in the pass. Chuh, chuh, chuh, chud, chud, chud, chud; and I told Virginny you was coming.”
“Yes, I heard about it,” answered Wiley sourly, “and then you told the Widow.”
44“Oh, no, I didn’t!” exulted Charley. “She’d’ve killed you, sure as shooting. I just told Virginny, that’s all.”
“Oh!” observed Wiley, and lay so still that Charley regarded him intently. His eyes were blue and staring like a newborn babe’s, but behind their look of childlike innocence there lurked a crafty smile.
“I told her,” went on Charley, “that you was coming to git her and take her away in your auto. She’s a nice girl, Virginny, and never rode in one of them things–I never thought you’d try to steal her mine.”
“I did not!” denied Wiley, but Death Valley only smiled and waved the matter aside.
“Never mind,” he said, “they’re all crazy, anyhow. They get that way every north wind. I’m here to take care of them–the Colonel asked me to, and keep people from stealing his mine. It’s electricity that does it–it’s about us everywhere–and that’s what makes ’em crazy; but electricity is my servant; I bend it to my will; that’s how I come to hear you. I heard you coming back, away out on the desert, and I knowed your heart wasn’t right. You was coming back to rob the Colonel of his mine; and the Colonel, he saved my life once. He ain’t dead, you know, he’s over across Death Valley in them mountains they call the Ube-Hebes. Yes, I was lost on the desert and he followed my tracks and found me, running wild through the sand-hills; and then Virginia and 45Mrs. Huff, they looked after me until my health returned.”
“You can hear pretty well, then,” suggested Wiley diplomatically. “You must know everything that goes on.”